Slaves to Real Estate

How many of you are slaves to your business?

Or better yet….how many of you are work horses and don’t realize you are slaves to your business?  Real estate is an industry where being easily accessible is not only the norm, but expected.  If a buyer calls you to help them on a property and you are not available, they will usually call the next agent that is.  So the tendency is to always answer the phone, always be willing to change plans on short notice and always be flexible with your schedule since the client is always first.

Guess what?  this is just wrong!

I know we all handle business differently and some have arrived at your “AHA MOMENT” much quicker than others, but the truth is that being easily accessible is not always the right answer.

The client that will not wait for your call back and will call another agent, will probably not be loyal, so it’s ok for them to walk away.  The client that expects you to answer the phone on a Saturday at 8:00 PM will probably be very rigid and not a good match.  We have arrived at these conclusions after years in business and wonder if it’s a Miami thing or if it applies to other market places.

It’s amazing to think that the more service prone you are and the more accessible you become, the more people will take advantage and the more slaved you will be.   Funny enough, I had great discussion a few years ago on Active Rain about this same subject – it was about taking time off and setting a working schedule.  Most agents that responded said that all their clients not only respected their schedule, but appreciate it.  We do have lives after all, don’t we?

Being Rigid is not always bad

We’ve had a couple of difficult listings lately where sellers set a very strict showing schedule and never deviated from it.  We found ourselves sounding a bit obnoxious when other agents requested showings outside of those parameters.  “What do you mean they won’t show at that time?”, “How do you expect to sell the property in this market if you are so rigid?”…….guess what?  We sold those properties for cash and above market value…  **more AHA MOMENTS**

Or how about those weekend calls that we wait until Monday to return – the answer is usually “sorry to have bothered you over the weekend” ** Music to my ears **

Expectations

So what I’m saying here is that you have the power to control how people approach you, and the expectations you set for them from the first moment of contact.  I’m not telling you how to run your business either, you may be perfectly fine with the “slave mentality”, just know that you can change that. You can set the tone for your working relationship by setting clear limits from day one.  People will respect you more because of those boundaries.